Robot Wars: The Official Handbook
Robot Wars: The Official Handbook is a book based on the rebooted series of Robot Wars, published by Scholastic and written by Laura Jackson. The Official Handbook was released on October 5th 2017, in both print and e-book formats. The book features statistics-based profiles of competitor and House Robots from the rebooted series, as well as behind-the-scenes information on the Robot Wars Arena and The Pits, interviews, and information on how to enter, design and build a competitor robot. As with the Fun Fax, The Official Handbook includes sections allowing readers to make notes and draw sketches of their own robot designs. Contents *1-12: Introduction - Introduces the book, and features a small gallery of images. *13-18: This is Robot Wars - Gives details on the Robot Wars Arena. *19-28: The Wars - Details the competition format for Series 8-9 and Series 10, ways of winning a battle, the Judging criteria, and profiles for Dara Ó Briain, Angela Scanlon, Jonathan Pearce, Noel Sharkey, Sethu Vijayakumar and Lucy Rogers. *30-40: The House Robots - Profiles for Sir Killalot, Shunt, Matilda and Dead Metal. *41-120: Robot A-Z Seasons 8-10 - Profiles with statistics for every robot to compete in Series 8, 9 and 10. Uses the official images from Series 9 for any robot which competed in that series, reserving official imagery from Series 8 and 10 for the robots exclusive to those series. *121-138: Roboteers, Stand By - Details the 2-hour repair window that roboteers are given during filming, and interviews Team Eruption, Team MAD and Team Carbide. Provides information on the final battles of Series 8 and 9, Carbide's respective battles with Apollo and Eruption. In With the Roboteers, profiles are given on Memento Mori and Jason Marston. Test Your Knowledge is a short quiz, and Share Your Knowledge allows readers to write down their favourite robots and their most destructive moment. *139-154: The Build - Detailed information on the official ruleset for Robot Wars, and advice on how to build a robot. Continues the interviews with Team MAD and Team Eruption, and analyses the design of TR2. Closes the chapter with a template to allow readers to design their own robot with regard to the official rules and restrictions. *155-168: Notebook - Five pages of lined paper, and seven pages of graph paper. *169-176: Glossary, Answers & Index - A glossary of the terms used in the book, an index of the competitor robots' pages, and the answers to the quiz. Errors *The handbook features a variety of spelling and printing errors. For example, Trolley Rage's name is misspelt as Trolley Range in the 'Season 9 Champion' section. *Tauron's bar weapon is described as a spinning drum, an error which was previously shared with the Robot Wars website. *The Heat Final stages of Series 10 are erroneously described as "Redemption Knockouts", the same name used by Round 2. *The handbook's image of Jonathan Pearce is not up-to-date. *The Corner Patrol Zones (CPZs) are frequently and erroneously referred to as ‘'corner panel zones'’. *The ‘Mishaps’ note on Carbide and Shockwave's Group Battle in the Series 8 Grand Final completely ignores Apollo's appearance in the same battle. *Some of the images used for Sir Killalot and Shunt's profiles are mirrored. *Sir Killalot's weight is listed as 741kg. This statistic refers to his weight in Series 8, ignoring his subsequent weight increase to 750kg for Series 9. *Apocalypse’s ‘Weapon’ section ignores its grabbing arms. *Big Nipper’s lifting/crushing claws are not mentioned in its ‘Weapon’ section, although their lifting capacity is cited as the robot’s ‘Super Strength’. *‘Disc’ is frequently spelt as ‘disk’ on many competitor profiles, including those for Crazy Coupe 88, Kill-E-Crank-E and M.R. Speed Squared. *Both ‘discs’ and ‘disks’ are used on The General's profile. *Foxic's lifting arm and King B Remix's forks are referred to as ‘flippers’. *‘Spikes’ are listed as one of Shockwave's interchangeable lifting weapons; however, they were not implemented until after its appearance in Series 8. *Thor's weapon is listed as a ‘Hammer’ in its profile, instead of the interchangeable axe heads which replaced the hammer for Series 8, 9 and 10. *Vulture is listed after Wyrm in the Robots A-Z instead of before. In addition, it is missing completely from the Index. *Many of Apollo and Carbide’s Head-to-Head battles in Series 8/9 are omitted from the ‘Season 8 Champion’ and ‘Season 9 Champion’ sections respectively. *The ‘With the Roboteers’ section on Thor completely ignores its performance in the Extreme 2 New Blood Championship, despite referencing the robot’s appearances in Series 6-7. Trivia *Aside from the Series 8 DVD/Blu-ray release, this was the first piece of merchandise based on the reboot to be sold via retail - the remaining merchandise items are only sold online and at filming. *''The Official Handbook'' is the first Robot Wars publication to be sold in a digital format; it is available as an e-book in addition to the printed version. *This book was the first source to officially reveal the competitors in Series 10, as well as the format. External Links *Amazon.co.uk page for Robot Wars: The Official Handbook Category:Books and Magazines